Heading into its centennial year, what must the National Park Service do to flourish?
Editor's note: Harry Butowsky spent more than three decades working for the National Park Service as an historian. He's worked for a handful of directors and seen much change in the agency. Understandably, he has an interesting perspective on the upcoming centennial of the National Park Service.
The National Park Service reminds me of a proud old ship sailing confidently across the North Atlantic. The captain is beaming and the passengers seem contented, at least, those traveling first class on the upper decks. It's below decks that the problems lurk. The crew is perhaps too easy going, believing the ship will always reach New York. However, the engines are old, the iron plating is thin, and the rivets are working loose. Granted, the Titanic is not a good analogy, since that ship was perfectly new. Otherwise, the analogy fits. The older things get'including institutions'the more they are in need of major repairs.
In the case of the National Park Service, the overhaul is long overdue. I spent my entire career in the History Division, which operates out of Washington, D.C. Some directors listened to the Division and others did not. Those that listened, I do believe, enjoyed smoother sailing in every division.
So, you will understand where I am coming from. I base my call for new backbone in the Park Service on good history. Only if the Park Service wants to tell a credible story can its centennial rise above mediocrity. My recommendations start with coming to grips with reality, and end with a call to historical arms.
This is my manual, if you will, for a great centennial, after which I invite you to offer your own. Just don't tell me that history is unimportant. In the Park Service, there is already enough of that myth going around.
Priority One: Address the Backlog
First, put this figure solidly in your mind'$11.5 billion. That's the backlog'the true funding shortage crippling all of our national parks. What is more, we can be sure that Congress is not likely to free up even a fraction of those needed funds. How can we be sure? Because the nation is $18 trillion in debt, with another $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. At $4 trillion annually, the entire annual budget of the United States cannot possibly meet those backlogs. We have to address the Park Service backlog as part of that greater problem, or else nothing we suggest will make sense.
Instead, Park Service administrators have opted to act as if nothing is amiss. Committees have been formed; deals are being struck. It's as if the backlog did not exist.
Consider the blizzard of news releases announcing new directions for the agency. That's not an iceberg up ahead, folks. That's an opportunity to 'reach out.' Fine, but how will the reaching out be funded? If these new initiatives cannot be paid for, how can any of them be considered sincere?
Here's just one example: http://citiesspeak.org/2015/04/20/national-park-service-launches-nps-urban-agenda/ So it's an urban agenda now. But again, where is the funding? Urban, rural, or wilderness, how will these 'initiatives' be paid for? If the problem holding everything back is money, what good does it do to keep making promises that no one can possibly keep?
Priority Two: Make the Size of the National Park System Fit the Budget
Face it. There are just too many units in the National Park System for the money the Park Service has on hand. The country may want 407 units, but the agency cannot afford half that many. The proof again is all those news releases. That is what bureaucrats do when they lack solutions. They keep conjuring up new initiatives and programs, hoping that one will prove a 'hit.'
They hope then to take the 'hit' to Congress and ask for the money they don't have. Fine, but $11.5 billion? That will require more than an urban initiative, or a youth initiative, or a science initiative, or a deal with Budweiser. It will rather require convincing the United States Congress that 'eventually' will be too late. Preservation cannot run on 'eventually.' Those dollars are needed now.
Will the parks get those dollars? History says no. In Congress, waiting for money can turn into an eternity. Just ask Yellowstone in 1872. In 2016 and beyond, we need to face the reality of our current budgetary and staffing limitations. I say that means cutting parks.
What would be the magic number to cut? Actually, I would not cut a one. I would simply put those parks back where they belong'with the states, or even cities and counties, that should have been given the responsibility in the first place.
Before we do that, I hear some people screaming, we should raise the fees at the gate. That will work somewhat for the bigger parks, but not every park is as popular as Yellowstone or Grand Canyon. In the end, it still comes down to Congress and that $11.5 billion backlog. There is only so much money to go around.
Certainly, not every park needs to be a federal entity just because the states refuse to act. In the 1920s, the preservation of many desirable landscapes was confidently left to the states. To name just a few, look at the wonderful state-park systems in New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and California. Why is that not happening now? Because many states'and many environmentalists'think of the federal government as a bottomless pit. Just shake the money tree and write another news release. Park created and problem solved!
National battlefields and military parks such as Manassas (above) and Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania are prominent in the National Park System, but how many battlefields does the Park Service need?/Kurt Repanshek
Unfortunately, the problem only keeps worsening. How many battlefields do we need to interpret the Civil War, for example? There were 5,000 separate actions. Cannot some of the 'action' revert to the states? And parkways, How many of those do we need? While I personally use the George Washington Parkway, I am not convinced it needs to remain a national park.
Mount Vernon is not a national park. Does that in any way lessen its significance? Is not George Washington still a national figure? Then there is Steamtown, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Sure, let's have a great park acknowledging railroad history, but why can't it managed by a state? Steamtown was blatantly intended to boost Scranton's local economy. Why should Uncle Sam be doing that?
And the urban parks. We all love open space. But why must the federal government be expected to fund them all?
Granted, it seems that government always has another pot of money. The problem is: It is always someone else's pot. No doubt, decommissioning just one aircraft carrier would fix the backlog, but that will never happen. American culture just doesn't work that way. That aircraft carrier employs people, too. We have to fix the number of parks within what Congress is willing to give the National Park Service, or Congress will not hear a word.
Priority Three: Establish Zero-Based Budgeting
Toward that end, the National Park Service needs to implement a zero-based budgeting system that will look at all of the regional and Washington, D.C., offices and programs. Does calling redundancy 'regional' make it right? Why can't every superintendent report to a leaner agency? But no, the staffing adjustments always come at the bottom, followed by a cry for more volunteers. Somewhere in that pile of news releases, I believe I saw that one. How can young people be expected take any 'initiative' on a salary of $10 a day? You want more 'minorities' to believe in the parks'and work in them? Then pay them an honest wage.
Priority Four: Put History Back in the Parks
None of this is of any surprise to historians. In various forms and guises, they have seen all of these problems before. This is to explain my pet peeve. It's actually misleading to create a 'historical' park. After all, every park comes with a history. Then let's see that visitors learn it, whether the park be Gettysburg or Yellowstone. The Park Service should start with every employee, including everyone working for the concessionaires. It's not just a job, folks. It's a calling. If you just want a job, McDonalds is hiring, and there should be plenty of openings at Burger King. In the parks, you work for generations yet unborn, and their legacy begins with your knowing that.
Start with your park's administrative history. You say your park doesn't have one? Then get an M.A. and write it as a thesis, or perhaps the dissertation for your Ph.D. Every park should have an up-to-date administrative history. How did we get this park? What is its mission? Where have we failed the public in the past? And believe me, we are always failing the public. That is what an administrative history is meant to correct for the future.
Nor should administrative histories be limited to individual parks. The system itself needs many such histories, broadly targeted to system issues. Can anyone doubt the importance of the role of concessionaires in park history? They have power. They have money. How does that influence the parks for good or ill? Where is the comprehensive history of the relationship between the National Park Service and the concessionaires? Here again, there is no such history, and some employee'with proper incentive from the agency'just might take the initiative to write it.
And fee policy. The last time the Service completed a history of that was in 1982. An update is long overdue. After all, fees now stay with the parks. Consider the 'backlog' again. Can it truly be erased just by changing the fee structure? We simply don't have enough history to guide us. We are still blindly looking forward without honestly looking back.
How far can higher fees go towards erasing the Park Service's maintenance backlog?/Kurt Repanshek
Nor does it end with fees and parks. Key documents such as the organizational charts and lists of all National Park Service Management personnel have not been updated since the late 1980s. See Organizational Structure of the National Park Service 1917 to 1985. Another key document, Historic Listing of National Park Service Officials.
And let us not forget the directors. At one time they were inclined to write useful and important books, or extensively shared their career findings with professional historians. The lessons a director learns are invaluable. The last to detail his experiences in a book was James Ridenour. The Service should commission a history of the management decisions and operational successes/failures of every director that ever served.
So, too, the National Park Service Thematic outline was last updated in 1987. Perhaps it is time for a new update. I am not referring to the 1994 thematic outline, but to the original thematic outline that dated back to 1929 when it was first conceived, History and Prehistory in the National Park System and the National Historic Landmarks Program.
If there is ever a commission charged with recommending the total number of parks which should be kept'and which should be transferred to state, local, or private authorities'this document will be needed. Better said, it will be essential.
Priority Five: An Educated Workforce
It is no wonder that rank-and-file members of the Park Service are drifting, too. An educated workforce is a confident workforce, but where are the materials supporting that education? Fortunately, there the future is somewhat brighter, thanks to historians from outside the agency. But again, employees must be given incentives to read their books.
Did I say books? You bet I did. Now that would be an 'initiative' capable of making a difference tomorrow morning'and without asking Congress for additional support.
Every employee needs to read those books. Of the six or seven books I would assign, one tops my list. That would be Alfred Runte's National Parks: The American Experience, the best book written on the national parks of all time. Think, then, of the thousands of employees in the Park Service who have never read it, including the current director of the National Park Service himself.
At least, if Director Jarvis has read it, he has never told me, or acted as if he did. A director who reads for effect would never be making the mistakes we see today. As one reviewer said of National Parks: The American Experience in an article for The Washington Post, 'At Interior, on Capitol Hill, and in the White House, National Parks is a must.'
A must does not mean a choice. Of course, some employees choose to read; my point is that all should made to read as a prerequisite for employment. My other titles would include:
1. The relevant administrative history'or its equivalent'of the employee's current park.
2. Alfred Runte, Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990).
3. Lary M. Dilsaver, editor. America's National Park System: The Critical Documents. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997
4. Polly Welts Kaufman, National Parks and the Woman's Voice: A History. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, updated ed., 2006.
5. Horace M. Albright as told to Robert Cahn. The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years, 1913-33. Salt Lake City: Howe Publications, 1985).
6. Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
The Park Service should make it simple and provide these books on employment, with the appropriate 'testing' as each employee advances. A test? Yes again, a test. These are government jobs subject to Civil Service approval. And even the Director should not escape. The public deserves to know that the Service knows what it is managing. That backlog did not emerge just out of the blue.
Even without any ' new' history, we have a rich mother lode of information about our parks in both print and electronic format. This information represents the accumulated wealth and experience of generations of national park employees. I would like to see nothing better for 2016 than to make this heritage of information easily available to all. Much of it can be found now on the web but no one knows where to look or what to look for. Many capable and hardworking people are trying to correct the issue. Let us support them and get the job done.
Information that cannot be found is useless. So yes, add the National Parks Traveler to my list of must-have sources that every employee should know'and want'to follow.
The National Park Service needs to revive its commitment to history/Kurt Repanshek
Allow me to close by reminding everyone what a scholar does. In the National Park Service, we in the History Division kept our agency 'out of trouble' by keeping the director'and many others'fully informed. Our job was to make them 'look good' in the eyes of Congress, the president, and the public. I did that job with pride.
As proof of my comments above, look no further than what happened to the History e-library site after I retired. There has not been a single update in three years. Most of the existing links to online studies are broken and the site still claims 397 parks. Really, now?
The immense collection of National Park Service studies, reports, and information on this web site just collapsed due to lack of any support or attention. Why was a decade of taxpayer-supported effort not fully lost? Because, once I realized what was happening, I transferred all of the existing 3,500 studies to my personal web site and added a few thousand more. The material is still available, but not because the Park Service wanted it available. I did it as my personal contribution to history, and it didn't cost the taxpayers a dime.
You wonder why I get frustrated'and even angry? Because that is not how government'your National Park Service and mine'is supposed to work. The History Division is not some localized group of history buffs. Sure, we all get behind, but three years and a busted website? Now what? More things like 'Washington Slept Here?' History is what Washington and the country did. The National Park Service is America's face to the world, and all the History Division is allowed to do now is put lipstick on another news release.
How could anyone possibly blow the history of the National Park Service during its centennial, of all things? A good question, and here is how they are blowing it. Upper management has thrown history in the trashcan and still expects the nation to be inspired. Trading on the prestige of the agency, they then expect the public to go along.
In the past, that would not have happened. Even the crippling backlog, if not entirely erased, would certainly have been addressed. Nor would the cost-savings have come at the price of history. Here again, anyone can trot out the Organization of American Historians and say that the profession 'approves.' Well, the professional historians that matter do not approve, and I have talked to every one of them.
History is not a toy. The national parks deserve our very best, both in terms of management and professional history. Now, start making friends with the history of your favorite park. And do urge its managers to do the same.
Comments
So, Travis, what's your plan? Write it up and present it to us. And one more thing. Tell us where you will find the money.
Meanwhile, I agree that Ethan Carr and Amy Meyer have written wonderful books. And is that not Dr. Butowsky's point? Who in the Park Service has even read those? Pick your seven books; pick your seventeen books. The point about being an educated man or woman is to know what you're talking about. And too many in Park Service management (yes, I will give the electrician a pass) haven't a clue.
In the 1920s, many leaders--including Stephen T. Mather as director--referred to the national parks as the University of the Wilderness. Mather was a reader, and so was his successor, Horace Albright. And both were writers, too. One of the letters I cherish in my files is from Horace Albright praising my work as a historian. I have no other such letter from anyone else in Park Service management, although Fran Mainella has generously endorsed my work.
In managing a great public institution, ignorance is no excuse. You have to manage from a position of strength and consistency. And good history is the prerequisite for both. You are right that some administrative histories are awful. Well, think again who gets to write those histories. And consider what they are paid.
Each of my major books has required 10 years to research and write--full-time. In years past, the Park Service was famous for offering just $18,000 per history. Did I say that right? I did. Eighteen thousand dollars, with a deadline of six months. I helped change that, but again paid the price for it. My gosh! You mean that historians want to be paid?
The backlog persists because we are cheap. As Americans, we want our national parks on the cheap. So, if you have a plan for how to fund 407 individual parks, let's hear it and see your reading list. We're all for it. We want solutions. Just don't tell us to "volunteer" while the big whigs still get paid.
I can tell you where my solution starts: Building a broad constituency in support of a strengthened, representative and relevant National Park System.
The "solution" pitched here would pit communities of interest - geographical, social, cultural and ecological - against each other in a frightful and wholly-counterproductive bout of internecine warfare destined to fragment and nullify that constituency.
Do you want to spend the next 10 years building a stronger national park system, or do you want to spend the next 10 years fighting each other over who gets to keep their national park? I know which one is going to strengthen us and which will weaken us.
While I admired Harry's professionalism as a NPS historian, I think he is forgetting one point when he starts talking about reducing the System or giving park areas to states. One of the enduring virtures of the National Park System is that each generation of Americans, speaking through their elected representatives, gets to add the to the System those areas that they believe merit protection in perpetuity. As a matter of generational equity, we owe it to those who have come before us to take the best care of those places we can.
As we all know, the NPS backlog is exaggerated and untrustworthy. That's how we operate; we tend to blame everthing on a lack of funds, so we embelish. Those that have been around awhile know that our budget has increased nearly every year, and for decades, often coming at the expense of other Interior agency's. Its not our lack of funding or being overextended that's the problem, its our leadership, managment and supervison; and lack of sound priority setting. It is not enough to just pour more money on a miss-managed agency and expect new, different and improved results. You must improve our leadership, establish mission based priorities / high standards and hold employees accountable for poor performance. From a history perspective, I agree that understanding our history is a key component for creating and maintaining agency culture / values, which supports high performance and ethical leadership. This is especially true regarding sharing our amazing early history, which created enertia and a pattern of agency success. Our modern-day pattern is fractured and our failing proud agency lies at the feet of our very poor leadership. Improve our leadership and everything else will follow. This leadership issue should have been number one on the listing, especially when the listing was created by a historian. Leadership builds values / agency culture, establishes high standards, clarifies priorities and this drive high performance. It is job number one. Otherwise, we could spend our time throwing a big expensive party and allow our leadership to creat a giant self-promotion campaign as our overarching priority. Oh, wait, that is exactly what we are doing!
Sorry, Travis, this is not a plan. It is your opinion of what would happen "if" someone else's plan were followed. Your "solution," as you call it, is undefined. The national parks already have "a broad constituency." Are you saying that the constituency is too "white" and affluent? Then say so. Stop beating around the bush with the PC jargon of a more "representative and relevant National Park System."
Just for the record, I disagree with that news release. Thirty-five years ago in Yosemite, fifty percent of my Park Service colleagues were female, Native American, Hispanic American, and African-American. But yes, interpreation had already fallen from a staff of 75 to a staff of 36. I believe now it is just 18. How do you make the parks more relevant by cutting job holders off at the knees?
In Zion, another wonderful couple just left the park, knowing they would never achieve permanent status. Again, you aren't going to make the national parks relevant to anyone if all you do is keep adding parks. Every park needs a staff, and if the staff is asked to "volunteer," well, that is Dr. Butowsky's point. It just doesn't work that way.
Who gets to keep "their" national park? Those who are willing to staff it properly and pay for it. Will some fight the process? But of course. They don't want to pay for it; they want someone else to pay for it. I am not agreeing with Dr. Butowsky about any numbers, but I know that limitless numbers are not in the cards. As it stands, we keep bargaining with the Devil (now Budweiser) to pay for the parks we have, and consequently no park has what it really needs.
No family can run a household on its credit card forever. "Fighting each other?" The fight is over. Uncle Sam is flat out broke. "Weaken us?" We are already weakened by refusing to acknowledge that. What Dr. Butowsky said today took guts. I don't agree with all of it; in the end, I may not agree with most of it. I will have to think about it for several days.
But I know truth when I see it. When I see Dr. Butowsky cite our national debt, I know he is struggling to deal with uncomfortable truths. As should we struggle before denouncing his plan simply because our plan is innately flawed. Certainly, all of my plans also end up by saying we need "more money." In other words, I am also forced to go back to the drawing board. The money just isn't there.
The money is certainly there. We spend uncounted billions and trillions on unnecessary jet fighters and pointless foreign wars. For the price of a single F-35, we would pay for the entire Tongass National Forest operating budget for a decade. Spending on land management agencies is barely a rounding error on the federal budget as a whole. The United States is not poor, let alone broke. What is needed is the political will to reprioritize our spending on parks rather than drones, historic sites rather than tax cuts for the wealthy.
If you are suggesting that this will be difficult, I do not deny it. But which is the future you wish for this country's public lands movement: fighting each other over scraps and calling each other's national parks worthless and deserving of being shut down, or standing together to defend, preserve and expand our world-class system of protected landscapes and cultural heritage sites? Which is your vision for the future, Alfred? What do you want the legacy of your generation to be?
Sorry, Ghost, but I instinctively distrust any comment that begins with the sweeping "as we all know". It is a mathematical certainty that that statement will always be a self-serving and inaccurate generalization. Next time you might want to check with some of us before including us in your generalization used to support your position.
In my experience the NPS has always been underfunded, and generally used as a political pawn in any budgeting process. The parks are treated at the national level similar to how, at the local levels, budgeting threats are leveled at schools, libraries, police and fire services.
What do I want for my country, Travis? I would start my wish list with common sense. In the 1960s, my student colleagues trashed the State University of New York at Binghamton to make their statement about "The War." Trouble was: Those jets you mention were their future paycheck, too. When they started work for General Electric and IBM, the love beads came off and the suits went on. Hypocrites? Yes, and Americans. Here in Seattle, that military budget still supports 85,000 workers at Boeing--not to mention another 65,000 at Microsoft, et al. How many can we possibly "retrain" for something else, that is, something that will support a family? Not many, and so again, the article this morning by Dr. Butowsky rests.
As you say, change is never easy. Nor has it been easy these past 50 years. The lack of jobs, rather than the abundance of them, explains Ferguson, Chicago, and Baltimore. And Binghamton, New York, my hometown. 25,000 jobs making shoes. Gone. 1500 jobs making furniture. Gone. 4,000 jobs making film and chemicals. Gone. 25,000 jobs building main frame computers. Gone. 5,000 jobs working for three railroads. Gone. What's left? The welfare line and a few hamburger joints. And the Little Venice, the best Italian restaurant in the world. Unfortunately, the sauce and meatballs don't make up for all of the losses, recently described as the Detroitification of upstate New York.
If you can find me 93,000,000 good-paying jobs (the number of adult Americans NOT working), then yes, you can talk about the military, and military spending, and all the rest. I will agree with you. Turn those weapons into plowshares, and yes, properly fund the national parks. However, that statistic is also misleading. It's us old folks--now 65 plus--eating up all that Social Security and Medicare. One day in the next 20 years, I'll go to the boneyard. Meanwhile, I am gobbling up the budget and contributing more than my fair share to the national debt. What is the legacy of my generation? Debt! Do I want it to be that? No, but no one listened when Paul Ehrlich published THE POPULATION BOMB way back in the year of Our Lord 1968.
How did all of this happen? While America was asleep--and yes--growing ever more politically correct as it outstripped its resources. Consequently, the deeper issues were never aired. Where are all those jobs I mentioned? In China. Is that bad? Not for China, but what does it do for us? A cheaper television set? A cheaper video game? Sure, and no interest paid to savers for the past six years.
National parks first flourished in that other society--the one that started disappearing in the 1960s. It was still the society of "America First." Tax the wealthy? Put all their booty in a pile, and they still could not run the country for a year. Repeat after me. Middle-class jobs, and middle class wages, and middle-class retirements--that's America. And the minute you say that these days, someone will accuse you of being a protectionist and an opponent of "free trade."
I've watched it unfold my entire life, and taught it, in the 1970s, as the inevitable conumdrum of population growth. "But Dr. Runte. The Green Revolution is feeding more people than ever before!" Yes, and now all of them want and need a job in an economy destroying jobs left and right. What did I read the other day? In 25 years, computers will be doing everything? In the movie Sleeper, Woody Allen got that right. The only thing left is the orgasmitron. Just don't turn it up to high.
Unfortunately, none of this is funny. Good people predicted it and wrote about it daily, but all of them were ignored. Now it's here. The world they predicted--5 billion more people, and 4 billion of them still out of work and hope.
Even if Congress would address it, the problem is now out of control. So I don't expect Congress to say: You're right! We'll cut the military and fund the parks. Why didn't we see it earlier? Gosh, that makes so much sense!
This century, nothing will be making sense. And if the next 5 billion people predicted should in fact materialize, we'll be lucky to keep the parks at all.